New faculty spotlight: Haitao Wen, Ph.D.

• Name: Haitao Wen, Ph.D.
• Title: Assistant professor, UNMC Department of Pathology and Microbiology, Holland Regenerative Medicine Program
• Hometown: Shandong, China

Research/ professional interests:

• Innate immunity;
• immuno-metabolism;
• mitochondrial metabolism;
• cell death;
• sepsis;
• colitis; and
• colitis-associated cancer.

How I fell in love with immunology:
Biology was my favorite class when I was in middle and high school. I was always amazed by both the complexity and precision of biological functions. I took the first class of immunology and microbiology during my second year of college, and I was hooked. That’s when I truly fell in love with immunology.

Degrees:

• Ph.D., molecular and cellular pathology, University of Michigan Medical School
• Postdoctoral training in Immunology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Previous positions:

• Assistant professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2013-2015

Three things people may not know about me:

• I love cooking, which I think is kind of similar to biomedical experiments. Different components/ingredients are added together and amazing results/dishes are generated making everyone happy. Although I must admit, sometimes failure does happen, and then I love delivery/take-out.
• I love sports. Ping-Pong and soccer are my favorites.
• Barbecuing and fireworks are my favorite combination during weekends or holidays. I really enjoy grilling and sharing food with everyone, and my kids love watching the fireworks — it always makes them really happy.